A Jaguars Touch Read Online Free Page B

reminded them, passing Regan off to Abby. “What makes you think differently?” he asked Gideon.
    “Like I stated earlier, they’ve been running the wrong tests. I’ll have to run a few more on just your blood to get some more definitive answers. But I can say with absolute certainty that somewhere in your family tree shifter DNA was introduced.”
    “How is that possible?” Logan asked and Gideon noticed the way Clara automatically stepped into her mate, wrapping her arms around his waist while he put his around her shoulders. They were a unit. It was good to see.
    “It’s not unusual,” Gideon told them, pushing past them to move across to the other side of the room. He didn’t like having others closed in around him. He needed his space the same way he needed fresh air. “Not all of us grow up knowing who or what we are.”
    Abby laughed. “Yeah, we know all about that. Neither Tah nor Reno knew they were shifters at first.”
    “You awoke the beast,” Gideon said. “I’ve heard. And Reno’s mate brought out the tiger in him. It happens that way sometimes. I’d guess Clara’s mating with Logan has aided in bringing his recessed DNA out more, but there could be other factors.”
    “Such as?” Clara asked.
    “Close proximity with a pride of several shifters,” Gideon said.
    “But I’ve been with Tah and Reno a long time,” Logan argued. “And Zane, Murphy and Kenzie.”
    “I’m sure that’s played a part,” Gideon said. “But once again you’re asking the wrong questions.”
    “What should we be asking?” Diane spoke up first.
    “If Logan’s beast will emerge or not,” Gideon said.
    He saw Logan tense and the way Clara soothed her mate by rubbing her hand up and down his chest.
    “Will it?” Clara asked.
    Gideon shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m sure I can work up a test that will give us a better idea. We could use it on Finn, too.”
    “How do you know so much about this?” Abby asked. “What tests to run and how to write code?”
    “Necessity is a great motivator. It probably helped that my parents were scientists,” Gideon stated with a shrug. “I learned some from them.”
    “Some?” Diane asked.
    “The rest I learned elsewhere,” he said. “I need some air.” With that he turned abruptly and moved quickly out of the room toward the stairs as memories fought to pull him under, pull him back. Memories of a time when he’d been captured, tortured and tested by another set of scientists—a set who had seen him as nothing more than an animal to experiment on. The same ones he feared Thomas might now be with.
    Gideon made his way quickly out the front door and away from the house. He was twitchy, edgy and his animal pressed at him to make the shift and take off through the trees. Normally, he would give in and go for a long run to soothe the jaguar inside him. But thanks to the feral virus, he needed to be more cautious, especially with the woman there. The one who was fast approaching him. The one with the power to destroy him if he wasn’t careful.
    “Keep away from me,” he snarled as he entered the trees and felt her behind him.
    She must have seen him leave and had followed him, something he would have noticed if he’d been in the present and not the past.
    “I’m getting real tired of assholes who think they can tell me what to do,” she snarled back at him.
    He turned toward her and gritted his teeth as his animal rose against him, fighting to pounce and take. She was a wet dream walking. Her T-shirt was tight across her breasts and snuggly tucked into her jeans. Boots laced up to mid-calf, and she braced her feet apart as she faced him. One look at her and his dick was ready and willing to indulge a fantasy or ten.
    “What do you want?” he demanded.
    “I’m not your fucking mate,” she yelled at him.
    “I don’t have a mate,” he said, agreeing with her.
    She shook her head as if that weren’t the response she’d been expecting. Finally, she